Two places in the Bible describe God striking people with hemorrhoids (ophalim): the curses in Parashat Ki Tavo and the story of the Philistines’ capture of the ark in 1 Samuel 5-6. In the latter, the Philistines make golden statues of their afflicted buttocks to propitiate the Israelite deity. Traditional readings replace these crass references with the less offensive term techorim (abscesses).

Dr. Rabbi Zev Farber

The Run-of-the-Mill Ketiv-Qeri

The Masoretic Text (MT) of the Hebrew Bible contains numerous examples of texts that are written one way but are meant to be read out loud a different way. The phenomenon is referred to as Ketiv-Qeri (כתיב-קרי), meaning, the “written” version (ketiv) and the publicly “read” version (qeri).

As was already noted by some medieval commentators, a great many of the instances of Ketiv-Qeri make no difference in meaning, and can be explained by assuming that the scribes were unsure which text was correct and found a way of including multiple options.[1] Examples of such differences are:

Defective (חסר) vs. plene (מלא) spelling,

Inclusion or exclusion of the conjugal vav,

Different grammatical constructs,

Similar looking letters,

Archaic spelling or grammatical features modernized over time.

Certain instances of Ketiv-Qeri, however, cannot be explained by scribal confusion or slight adjustments in spelling or grammar over time. In this piece, we will examine one example of this type.

Crass Terminology:
Abscesses vs. Hemorrhoids (Deut 28:27)

As part of the curses in Parashat Ki Tavo, YHWH—a name that comes with the invariable qeri of Adonai[2]—threatens Israel with a number of bodily afflictions if they do not abide by the covenant. One of these threats contains a Ketiv-Qeri:

Yhwh will strike you with the Egyptian inflammation, with hemorrhoids, boil-scars, and itch, from which you shall never recover.

Yhwh will strike you with the Egyptian inflammation, with abscesses, boil-scars, and itch, from which you shall never recover.

The words ophalim and techorim do not sound similar and they are not synonyms. They are both painful, physical afflictions, however, whose main difference lies in where on the body the affliction occurs. Techorim are probably abscesses, which can appear anywhere on the body. Ophalim, however, which literally means “swellings,” likely refers to hemorrhoids,[3] an affliction of the anus, which is not generally discussed in polite company. Thus, in this case, the Ketiv-Qeri reflects not scribal doubts about the proper term, but rather their aesthetic or religious sense that the word should not be read in public.[4] This type of scribal adjustment appears in a few places in the Hebrew Bible, mostly in connection with scatological (i.e., bathroom) terminology,[5] but only once more in the Torah, also in Parashat Ki Tavo (Deut 28:30), in which a crasser term for sex (ש-ג-ל) is replaced with the more polite “lie with” (ש-כ-ב).

Samaritan and LXXOther traditions appear to have been less squeamish, although confusion about the exact meaning of the curse remains. The Samaritan Pentateuch (SP), for instance, reads ophalim, with no adjustments.[6] The Septuagint (LXX) combines the first two curses to threaten that God will strike the Israelites, “with Egyptian inflammation in the buttocks.”[7] It sounds as if the scribe thought of hemorrhoids as an Egyptian affliction. Whatever the explanation, the translator is not bothered by making reference to this private area in his popular translation.

When YHWH Struck the Philistines with Hemorrhoids

The curse of hemorrhoids comes up again in the Hebrew Bible in 1 Samuel 5-6, in which the Philistines go to war against the Israelites and defeat them in the battle of Even HaEzer. During this battle, the Philistines take possession of the ark and bring it back to the Philistine city of Ashdod. But then, YHWH strikes them with a curse (1Sam 5:6, MT[8]):

…He struck the people of the city, young and old, so that hemorrhoids(read: “abscesses”) broke out among them.

The Gathites come to the same conclusion as the Ashdodites did, and send the ark to yet a third Philistine city, Ekron. The same thing then happens a third time, only worse, since YHWH kills many of the Ekronites as well (1Sam 5:12):

וְהָאֲנָשִׁים אֲשֶׁר לֹא מֵתוּ הֻכּוּ בעפלים (קרי:בַּטְּחֹרִים)…

And the men who did not die were stricken with hemorrhoids(read: “abscesses”)…

The Philistine’s Golden HemorrhoidsEventually, the Philistines understand that the Israelite God is wroth with them and wants his ark returned to his people, so they send the ark back. They further reason that it would be necessary to send an offering to appease this God, and they decide to make five golden statues of their ophalim, one for each of the five main Philistine cities, and send this along with the ark (1 Sam 6:4-5).

They asked, “What is the indemnity that we should pay to Him?” They answered, “Five golden hemorrhoids (read: “abscesses”) and five golden mice, corresponding to the number of lords of the Philistines; for the same plague struck all of you and your lords. You shall make figures of your hemorrhoids (read: “abscesses”) and of the mice that are ravaging your land; thus you shall honor the God of Israel, and perhaps He will lighten the weight of His hand upon you and your gods and your land.

The LXX’s Golden ButtocksIt is unclear what it might mean to make a golden statue of hemorrhoids or abscesses. The LXX’s translation, however, avoids this problem. As we saw above, the LXX renders the verse in Ki Tavo as “an affliction of the behind.” Similarly, in 1 Samuel 6:17, the LXX describes the offering as “five golden behinds (αἱ ἕδραι αἱ χρυσαῖ).”[9] Radak (R. David Kimchi, 1160-1235), in his gloss on 1Sam 5:6, also understands the word ophalim as buttocks as opposed to hemorrhoids.[10]

Even if we do not accept the LXX and Radak’s translation of ophalim as “buttocks,” and assume that it does mean “hemorrhoids,” the LXX’s suggestion of golden buttocks may be correct. It seems much more likely that the author of Samuel is using the term “golden hemorrhoids” as a synecdoche, and imagining statues of the men’s afflicted bottoms as opposed to statues of the affliction itself, since how does one make a statue of hemorrhoids?[11]

Lampooning the Philistines
The image of the powerful rulers of the Philistines, who routed Israel in a humiliating defeat, making golden images of their afflicted bottoms to offer to the Israelite God is certainly meant to be comical. (The surprising addition of golden mice will have to wait for a different piece.)

The text lampoons Israel’s powerful enemies in an ancient example of toilet humor. Nevertheless, as we saw in Deuteronomy, the later scribes were uncomfortable with this mode of expression in the holy texts and compromised by creating the tradition of not reading the word ophalim in public.

Two Cases of a Missing Ketiv

The Philistine gifts appear two more times in the story (1Sam 6:11, 17); both times, however, the Masoretic Text, uses techorim, without writing ophalim in the main text. A reader unaware of the qeri tradition, who was simply reading along in the main text, would not know why the hemorrhoids of the narrative have suddenly appear as abscesses.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Biblica Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS), the standard scholarly Bible, notes that in verse 11 the word ophalim appears in more than 20 medieval Hebrew manuscripts, and in v. 17 it appears in a few manuscripts.

6:17 The following were the golden abscesses (some mss: hemorrhoids) that the Philistines paid as an indemnity to YHWH…

The Qeri became the Ketiv orReverse RedactionOne way to understand why the standard MT does not have the qeri here is to assume that the current text of vv. 11 and 17 reflects a scribal error in which the qeri supplanted the ketiv. The existence of multiple manuscripts with ophalim instead of techorim supports the possibility that these verses too once had a ketiv and qeri.

Alternatively, it may be that the phrase in v. 11 and the entirety of v. 17 are themselves late redactional supplements (see appendix for discussion), in other words, that the scribes who added them were not the same authors as wrote the main text and they used a different term. Perhaps they did so for aesthetic reasons. It may even be that the tradition to avoid saying the term ophalim aloud is ancient and goes back to the Second Temple period, when this supplement was likely added. If this is correct, then some later scribes, assuming that the earlier scribe had mistakenly put the qeri text in place of the ketiv, reverse corrected the text and put in ophalim in.[13]

Compromising on Crass Language

The Babylonian Talmud (Megillah 25b) quotes a baraita (an early rabbinic source) listing all the times we avoid crass language in public readings and substitute the terms with euphemisms.

כל המקראות הכתובין בתורה לגנאי קורין אותן לשבח…

All the verses that include rude words are read with euphemisms…

Unsurprisingly, both Deut 28:27 and 1Sam 5-6 are mentioned. To the ancient scribes as well as the rabbis, it is one thing to have these words appear in the biblical text, perhaps for shock value, or, in the case of Samuel, comic effect, but quite another to have them read aloud in polite company, whether in synagogues or other Torah-reading venues.

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AppendixRedactional Supplements in the Philistine Story
and the Reverse Ketiv-Qeri

Both verse 11 and 17 of 1 Samuel 6 contain awkward phrasing, which imply that they were added at a late stage of the transition.

What’s In the Box?

Verse 11 describes the Philistines loading the box:

וַיָּשִׂמוּ אֶת אֲרוֹן יְ-הוָה אֶל הָעֲגָלָה וְאֵת הָאַרְגַּז

וְאֵת עַכְבְּרֵי הַזָּהָב וְאֵת צַלְמֵי טְחֹרֵיהֶם.

They placed the Ark of YHWH on the cart as well as the chest,

the golden mice, and the figures
of their abscesses.

The box is clearly meant to be where the golden statues are stored and there is no need to mention them separately. A later scribe did not understand this and wondered what happened to the statues, so he added them in, but only used the word techorim.

Continuing the Story After It is Over

Vv. 17-18, which also do not contain the ketiv-qeri, come after the story is over. The earlier ending to the story is easy to see (1Sam 6:15-16):[14]

And the Levites took down the Ark of YHWH and the chest beside it containing the gold objects and placed them on the large stone. Then the men of Beth-shemesh presented burnt offerings and other sacrifices to YHWH that day. The five lords of the Philistines saw this and returned the same day to Ekron.

This is a natural ending. The ark is returned, the golden objects unpacked, the Israelites are celebrating, and the Philistines go home. Why suddenly do we return to list the cities that contributed the golden figures? Narratively speaking, there is little reason to do so here. This was likely a gloss on the side of the manuscript added into the text later, to deal with the problem that the story tells only of three cities that were smitten but assumes five cities contributed. The supplementer has added these verses to explain which cities contributed.

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Dr. Rabbi Zev Farber is a fellow at Project TABS and editor of TheTorah.com. He holds a Ph.D. from Emory University in Jewish Religious Cultures (Hebrew Bible focus) and an M.A. from Hebrew University in Jewish History (biblical period focus). In addition to academic training, Zev holds ordination (yoreh yoreh) and advanced ordination (yadin yadin) from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (YCT) Rabbinical School. He is the author ofImages of Joshua in the Bible and their Reception (De Gruyter, BZAW 457) and the editor of Halakhic Realities: Collected Essays on Brain Death (Maggid).

[1] See for example, Radak (David Kimchi c. 1160-1235; Commentary on the Former Prophets, introduction), R. Menachem HaMeiri (1249-1306, Kiryat Sepher, introduction), and R. Profiat Duran (c. 1350-1415; Maaseh Ephod, p. 40). R. Isaac Abarbanel (1437-1508), however, claims that to say the scribes were unsure of the text is illegitimate and states that the discrepancy has to do with mysteries in the text which the scribes either do not understand or did not wish to reveal to the listeners (Commentary on Jeremiah, introduction). Many later authorities like Radbaz (David ibn Zimra 1479-1573, Responsa Radbaz, #1020/572) and Maharal of Prague (Judah Loew 1520-1609, Tiferet Yisrael, ch. 66) follow Rabbi Isaac’s claim in the Talmud (b. Nedarim 37b) that God transmitted both versions from the beginning. For a detailed survey of the phenomenon as a whole, see the Encyclopedia Yehudit article, “קרי וכתיב,” on the Da’at website. For a discussion of the religious responses to the phenomenon among rabbinic commentators, see Menachem ben Yitzhak, “קרי וכתיב,”HaMa’ayan (5753), also on the Da’at website, and the transcribed lecture of Amnon Bazak,“Shiur #7d: Nusach Ha-mikra – Accuracy of the Biblical Text,” on the Virtual Beit Midrash website. For an academic treatment of the phenomenon, see Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (2nd rev. ed.; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001 (orig. 1992), 58-64; James Barr, “A New Look at Kethibh-Qeri,” OTS 21 (1981): 19-37. See also Robert Gordis’ classic treatment in, Robert Gordis, The Biblical Text in the Making: A Study of the Kethib-Qeri (Philadelphia: Dropsie College, 1937 [reprint: New York: Ktav, 1971]).

[2] According to Jewish tradition, the name YHWH may not be pronounced, and is replaced in public readings with the word Adonai, meaning “our LORD.” The Israelite-Samaritans have the same tradition, but they replace YHWH with Shehmaa, Aramaic for “the name,” a parallel to the popular Jewish locution, Hashem.

[3] This is the classic distinction between the two terms, found in numerous rabbinic commentaries and English translations. Other interpretations have been suggested, however.

Reverse Interpretation – Shimon Bar Ephrat and Moshe Garsiel, in their respective commentaries on Samuel, suggest the reverse, that techorim are the hemorrhoids and ophalim are either abscesses (Bar Ephrat) or some sort of internal growths in the digestive system (Garsiel). See, Shimon bar Ephrat, Samuel 1 (Mikra LiYisrael; Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1996), 100-101 [v. 5:6]; Shmuel Abramsky and Moshe Garsiel, eds., Samuel 1 (Olam HaTanach; Tel Aviv: Davidson-Itai, 1997), 71 [v. 5:6], 74 [v. 6:4]. Etymologically, these possibilities are sound, but narratively and text critically (i.e., as an explanation for the substitution of one term for another), they are unlikely.

Synonyms– A more likely possibility, also mentioned by Shimon Bar Ephrat (ad loc.) is that ophalim and techorim are, in fact, synonyms (both could mean hemorrhoids), and that techorim was written in on the side of the ancient manuscripts as a gloss for an obscure term, and later misunderstood as a substitute term. Similarly, the BDB dictionary translates techorim as “dysentery,” and suggests that it has a secondary meaning as “hemorrhoids” since the latter can be caused by the former.

Buttocks – Radak offers a plausible approach in his gloss on 1Sam 5:4, that ophalim is a reference to the buttocks and techorim to the affliction. This is likely reflected in LXX translation as well. Both will be discussed later.

STDs – Aren Maeir suggests that ophalim refers to a disease of the phallus; see, Aren Maeir, “A New Interpretation of the Term ʿopalim (עפלים) in the Light of Recent Archaeological Finds from Philistia,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 32.1 (2007), 23-40. If Maeir is correct, the reason for the substitution of ophalim for techorim would be the same as suggested in this article, since STDs are also not discussed in polite company.

[4] A list of examples appears in b. Megillah 25b. Josh Waxman refers to this phenomenon as “bowdlerization” in his blog post, “Bowdlerization of the Torah,”(2003).

[5] See, for example, 2Kings 6:25, 10:27, and 18:27.

[6] Nevertheless, Benyamim Tsedaka’s translation of ophalim as “tumors” as opposed to “hemorrhoids” implies that the Israelite-Samaritan community may have softened the text through interpretation as opposed to the rabbinic method of substituting an alternative term in the public reading (ketiv-qeri). See, Benyamim Tsedaka, The Israelite-Samaritan Version of the Torah (coedited by Sharon Sullivan; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), ad loc.

[7] ἐν ἕλκει Αἰγυπτίῳ ἐν ταῖς ἕδραις .

[8] The LXX has a number of differences that require a separate treatment, some I will touch on later in this piece; others will have to wait for a different piece.

[9] This point is dependent on my choice of translation for the Greek. As I described in the LXX version of Deut 28:27, the phrase that the LORD will strike them ἐν ταῖς ἕδραις appears to mean “in their buttocks,” i.e., hemorrhoids. Nevertheless, Johan Lust, Erik Eynikel, and Katrin Houspie, in their Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Biblical Gesellschaft, 2003), in their entry on ἕδρα-ας (p. 171), prefer the possibility “seat,” i.e., locality. They bring as a proof the Old Latin translation, “in domibus eorum,” i.e., in their homes. Nevertheless, the Old Latin may simply be misunderstanding the Greek “seat,” which in context meant “bottom/buttocks” for “seat” meaning “home.” (The same double meaning is true of the English term “seat” as well.) Etymologically speaking, the Hebrew original ophalim certainly does not mean “home” or “locality.” Thus, if Lust et alia are correct, then the Greek was purposely censoring the Hebrew, as the later Jewish scribes did by substituting techorim. That said, I think buttocks is the much more likely meaning here.

“With ophalim” – this is the ketiv, the qeri is “with techorim.” The ketiv is a nickname name for [people’s] bottoms, since “ophelei” connotes high places as in (Isa 32:14), “citadel (ophel) and tower.” And nicknames employ opposites. The qeri is the name of the affliction (i.e., hemorrhoids).

Radak reasons that nicknames employ opposites, like the American usage of calling a large person “tiny” or the Rabbis’ term for blind people as סגי נהור, people with “too much light.” I would argue, however, that if Radak is correct about the translation of ophalim, it is not for this reason, but because ophalim also means “hills” or “mounds,” which could euphemistically describe the human buttocks, and this is likely what stands behind the LXX’s translation.Strangely, he does not apply this insight to the statues, but describes the statues as being of hemorrhoids (his translation of techorim); see his gloss on 1Sam 6:4.

[11] This also works with Maier’s suggestion, referenced above, that ophalim refers to a disease of the phallus.

[12] In this verse, the LXX only has the mice, and this is the editor’s reconstruction for 4Q51/4QSamuela as well.

[13] Granted that no such tradition is recorded in Second Temple literature or DSS, but that doesn’t mean the practice did not occur. Squeamishness is a human phenomenon and not a particularly rabbinic trait. Unfortunately, 4Q51/4QSamuela sheds no light on this matter. In verse 5, it reads ophalei (pics of the manuscript fragment are available on deadseascrolls.org.il in full spectrum color image here and in infrared here), but both sections that would have included the term in vv. 11 and 17 are missing in the fragmentary manuscript. The editor’s reconstruction of v. 11 assumes that only the golden mice are mentioned (like the LXX text) and in v. 17 that the word ophalei is used, but this is purely conjectural.

[14] I say “earlier” and not “original” since the original ending was likely v 14, but the expansion into vv. 15-16 certainly predates the redactional supplements in vv. 17ff.

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